The New York Times Co. in an attempt to cut costs and focus on its most important papers and their websites has decided to sell 16 regional newspapers spread across the U.S. Southeast and California to Halifax Media Holdings for $143 million in cash.

In the recent past, regional newspapers have struggled due to weak local retail and national advertising, partly reflecting the economy’s broader travails.

“I think that it’s toward the low end of what we expected. I was expecting $150-$200 million,” Evercore Partners analyst Douglas Arthur told Reuters.

“What it implies is that margins on regional newspapers were not as high as we thought, but the underlying profitability of the main New York Times is higher.”

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that hackers in China broke through the computer defenses of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce last year and were able to access information about its operations and its 3 million members.

China dismissed the report in Beijing. “There’s nothing to be said about the baseless whipping up of so-called hacking and it won’t come to anything,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin told a daily news briefing in Beijing. “Chinese law bans hacking.”

The source said the FBI informed the Chamber of Commerce that servers in China were pilfering its information.

“What was unusual about it was that this was clearly somebody very sophisticated, who knew exactly who we are and who targeted specific people and used sophisticated tools to try to gather intelligence,” the group’s chief operating officer, David Chavern, told the Journal.

The economic prospects of Europe next year are so bleak that 2011 has every chance of being remembered fondly.

Policy tightening that reinforces the cyclical downturn was politically predictable given insistence of powerhouse Germany on budgetary rigor. The euro zone’s policy settings risk making the process of whittling down debt tougher than it needs to be, in eyes of a number of economists.

“It’s been clear for some time that the stronger north Europeans, led by Germany, need to stop tightening their economic policies and adopt at least mildly expansionary policies,” said Fred Bergsten, director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a think tank in Washington.

In today’s competitive business environment, it is almost mandatory for every business (small or big) to create and maintain an effective web presence supported by solid web hosting services. In short, business website hosting is not an option anymore; it is a must-have these days.

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Facebook has recently admitted that it had hired a public relations firm for highlighting supposed flaws in the privacy practices of Google Inc.

The company, however, denied it had intended a smear campaign against the search giant.

From news.yahoo.com:

Facebook, which has taken privacy missteps of its own with users in the past, hired WPP owned PR firm Burson-Marstellar to focus attention on the use of consumers’ personal information on Google Social Circles, one of Google’s less known social networking features.

The revelation highlights the growing rivalry between Google, the world’s leading Web search business, and Facebook, the largest social networking site with over a half a billion users globally.

Facebook and Google’s skirmish shows how consumer privacy, particularly around sensitive data, could be a ticking time bomb for modern Internet companies who manage an increasing amount of information about their users such as credit card and social security numbers.

Burson-Marstellar contacted several journalists and privacy experts without revealing the identity of its client. Facebook said it should have presented the issues in a “serious and transparent” way.

The company said in a statement, “We wanted third parties to verify that people did not approve of the collection and use of information from their accounts on Facebook and other services for inclusion in Google Social Circles.”

When it comes to learning important lessons of life in an easy way, there cannot be anything better than words coming straight from eminent personalities of the world. Let us access some of the most inspiring quotations to get and stay inspired.

I’ve come to believe that each of us has a personal calling that’s as unique as a fingerprint – and that the best way to succeed is to discover what you love and then find a way to offer it to others in the form of service, working hard, and also allowing the energy of the universe to lead you. – Oprah Winfrey

The toughest thing about success is that you’ve got to keep on being a success. Talent is only a starting point in this business. You’ve got to keep on working that talent. Someday I’ll reach for it and it won’t be there. – Irving Berlin

Now, I say to you today my friends, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: – ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’ – Martin Luther King Jr.

Dreams surely are difficult, confusing, and not everything in them is brought to pass for mankind. For fleeting dreams have two gates: one is fashioned of horn and one of ivory. Those which pass through the one of sawn ivory are deceptive, bringing tidings which come to nought, but those which issue from the one of polished horn bring true results when a mortal sees them. – Homer

I am still determined to be cheerful and happy, in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances. – Martha Washington

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. – Herm Albright

Apple Inc posted record revenue and profits on January 18, a day after it announced that its iconic founder and chief executive Steve Jobs was taking a medical leave of absence for unspecified health problems.

Record revenue of $26.74 billion in the fourth quarter was reported by Apple, which encompasses the crucial holiday season, compared to $15.68 billion in revenue a year earlier.

From in.news.yahoo.com:

The company sold 16.24 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 86 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 19.45 million iPods during the quarter, representing a seven percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.

It also sold 7.33 million iPads during the quarter. Apple sold 4.13 million Macs during the quarter, a 23 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter.

‘We had a phenomenal holiday quarter with record Mac, iPhone and iPad sales,’ said Jobsin a statement. ‘We are firing on all cylinders and we’ve got some exciting things in the pipeline for this year including iPhone 4 on Verizon which customers can’t wait to get their hands on.’

Profits of Apple jumped from $3.38 billion to $6 billion, according to a company announcement.

Perfection at the workplace is dreamt by one and all but only an elite few are able to attain it. In this compilation of motivational quotes, we will help you realize your dreams in no times by getting inspired.

To be a good human being is to have a kind of openness to the world, an ability to trust uncertain things beyond your own control, that can lead you to be shattered in very extreme circumstances for which you were not to blame. That says something very important about the condition of the ethical life: that it is based on a trust in the uncertain and on a willingness to be exposed; it’s based on being more like a plant than like a jewel, something rather fragile, but whose very particular beauty is inseparable from that fragility. – Martha Nussbaum

Life becomes religious whenever we make it so: when some new light is seen, when some deeper appreciation is felt, when some larger outlook is gained, when some nobler purpose is formed, when some task is well done. – Sophia Lyon Fahs

Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heart-ache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same source.  There is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, to discover what is already there. – Henry Miller, Sexus

If you were looking for motivational online presence quotes then this compilation of inspiring quotations can help you in more than just a way.

Curiosity is only vanity.  Most frequently we wish not to know, but to talk.  We would not take a sea voyage for the sole pleasure of seeing without hope of ever telling.  - Blaise Pascal, Pensées

There are no foolish questions, and no man becomes a fool until he has stopped asking questions.  - Charles Proteus Steinmetz

The one thing that matters is the effort.  It continues, whereas the end to be attained is but an illusion of the climber, as he fares on and on from crest to crest; and once the goal is reached it has no meaning.  – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Wisdom of the Sands, translated from French by Stuart Gilbert

Men are made stronger on realization that the helping hand they need is at the end of their own arm.  – Sidney J. Phillips

One saves oneself much pain, by taking pains; much trouble, by taking trouble.  – Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827

If a man is called a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry.  He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and Earth will pause to say, Here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well.  – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Many people think they want things, but they don’t really have the strength, the discipline.  They are weak.  I believe that you get what you want if you want it badly enough.  - Sophia Loren

Stay inspired for redefining online presence of your business by reading this motivational blog. This blog can be best described as an inspirational tool in the hands of modern business owners and executives. Read on!

Well my market strategy was to put together a magazine that I myself would enjoy as a reader. I edited the magazine for myself. it was a handbook for the urban male. – Hugh Hefner

Some of our businesses use more energy than others, but our strategy everywhere is the same.. first, reduce our use of energy as much as possible. Then, switch to renewable sources of power where it makes economic sense. And, over time, as a last resort, offset the emissions we can’t avoid. – Rupert Murdoch

Today the strategies of many companies in the real estate industry are premised on low interest rates, an assumption that has resulted in the rapid expansion of the real estate securitization business. This trend could be regarded as a risk factor, as it exposes the real estate sector to at least three potential problems: first, interest rate hikes; second, revisions to securitization business accounting standards; and third, overheating in the real estate market. – Akira Mori

When you’re really trying to make serious change, you don’t want people to get caught up in emotion because change isn’t emotion. Because change isn’t emotion. Its real work and organization and strategy.. that’s just the truth of it. I mean, you pull people in with inspiration, but then you have to roll up your sleeves and you’ve got to make sacrifices and you have got to have structure. – Michelle Obama